When diagnosing allochiria, it is important to consider the sensory and the motor aspects of the problem. In absence of knowledge there are a number of ways in which the various symptoms may be overlooked or misinterpreted and as the condition goes frequently unrecognized. One rare example in medicine that causes a wrong diagnosis of allochiria is due to the unawareness of a few simple facts than to any failure in judgment. It is evident that the details of the sensory symptoms get overlooked when testing a patient's localizing capacity. The observer neglects to inquire expressly as to the side to which the sensation is referred. This is evident when patients with allochiria show no fault in sensorial perception and localization. However, even if the patient mentions the wrong side, it is sometimes being just regarded as a slip of the tongue and matter may not be pursued any further. Looking at the motor aspect of allochiria, the symptoms again are described in a misleading way because the symptoms are less obvious. Unless motor manifestations are carefully analyzed, they may be interpreted as clumsiness or weakness. Moreover, when patients complained of weakness and awkwardness of right side—examinations apparently confirmed that the truth of this statement and defect was marked as acts consciously performed and was present only in relation to such acts. If a patient says that he cannot tell on which side the certain stimulus is applied—existence of allochiria is confirmed, provided that sensibility is intact.

Allochiria (from the Greek meaning "other hand") is a neurological disorder in which the patient responds to stimuli presented to one side of their body as if the stimuli had been presented at the opposite side. It is associated with spatial s, usually symmetrical, of stimuli from one side of the body (or of the space) to the opposite one. Thus a touch to the left side of the body will be reported as a touch to the right side, which is also known as somatosensory allochiria. If the auditory or visual senses are affected, sounds (a person's voice for instance) will be reported as being heard on the opposite side to that on which they occur and objects presented visually will be reported as having been presented on the opposite side. Often patients may express allochiria in their drawing while copying an image. Allochiria often co-occurs with unilateral neglect and, like hemispatial neglect, the disorder arises commonly from damage to the right parietal lobe.

Allochiria is often confused with alloesthesia, also known as false allochiria. True allochiria is a symptom of dyschiria and unilateral neglect. Dyschiria is a disorder in the localization of sensation due to various degrees of dissociation and cause impairment in one side causing the inability to tell which side of the body was touched.